Below are DynaMed’s most recent updates on Ebola and its summary of the changes in the CDC guideline. Select its E-Newsletter tab to sign up for its email alerts, view the archive of EBM Focus, or register for CME credit for reading it.

The world is presently experiencing the largest outbreak of Ebola virus disease (Ebola) in history. Over 9,000 persons have been infected in West Africa, resulting in over 4,500 deaths. Three cases have been diagnosed in the United States, two among nurses caring for the first patient.

Following the transmission of Ebola to healthcare workers, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have revised their guidelines on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE). New CDC guidance emphasizes:

Rigorous and repeated training in performing all infection control procedures, specifically the donning and doffing of PPE, with demonstration of competency for all healthcare workers involved in the care of Ebola patients.

No skin exposure when PPE is worn. New step-by-step instructions require full-body coverage, including use of a surgical hood with single use face shield, fluid-resistant gowns supplemented by waterproof aprons and boot covers, double gloves and either N95 respirator or powered air purifying respirator (PPAR). Use of facemasks and goggles are no longer considered adequate.

Supervision by a trained observer to ensure that there is no breach in protocol when healthcare workers don or doff PPE.

Our final Open Access post for the week is a guest post from Judy Rabinowitz, one of our Research & Instruction librarians and a member of Tufts Scholarly Communications Team:

Open vs. Public Access: What’s the Difference?

The NIH Public Access Policy, the now well established mandate requiring scientists to submit manuscripts that arise from NIH funds into PMC, made “public access” a familiar phrase to many in the biomedical field. The White House memo drafted in February 2013, directing a similar charge to research supported by several other government agencies, including NSF, DOE, and the CDC, is poised to make “public access” even more of a household term. But why are these not just called open access policies? Where’s the distinction?

Many times, “public access” and open access” are used interchangeably, but in fact there are important distinctions between them. It all boils down to the multiple definitions of the word “free.”

Free as in “gratis” - refers to free of charge
Free as in “libre” – refers to freedom of use

To put it simply, open access encompasses both definitions of free, being free of costs and also free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Public access materials, on the other hand, while free of cost to read, do not necessarily have the same freedoms to use and reuse and therefore the “libre” definition may not apply.

Have you thought about posting your published work to your own website or your institution’s open access repository but are concerned you will be in violation of the copyright agreement you signed with the publisher?

Have you thought about posting your published work to your own website or your institution’s open access repository but are concerned you will be in violation of the copyright agreement you signed with the publisher?

Copyright agreements can be intimidating but there is a tool that can help you begin to understand what rights you do have for archiving your works. SHERPA RoMEO is a database of publisher’s copyright policies presented in clear and understandable language. It is intended for use by the academic research community and is easily searchable by journal title, ISSN, or publisher name.

The trick to using SHERPA RoMEO is to first determine what version(s) of your work you currently retain because publishers often have different archiving rules based on versioning.

The pre-print is the final version of your article submitted for peer review / refereeing.

The post print is the version you submitted after addressing comments from the peer review / refereeing process.

The publisher’s version is the final post print dropped into the publisher’s layout. It often includes page numbers, logos, and print registration marks and is usually in PDF format.

You may be surprised by what your standard copyright agreement allows. Many well-known publishers allow the post print to be posted to an author’s personal website or an open access institutional repository without any embargo. Additional requirements tend to be fairly simple and often include acknowledging the published source and providing a link to either the journal home page or the article’s DOI (digital object identifier).

Are you new to the world of scientific publishing? Want to garner some advice on getting your work published? Join HHSL, OEA Faculty Development, and top journal publishers and editors for:

A panel of experts from Springer, Oxford, New England Journal of Medicine, and Elsevier will offer industry insight and answer your burning questions. [...]

Are you new to the world of scientific publishing? Want to garner some advice on getting your work published? Join HHSL, OEA Faculty Development, and top journal publishers and editors for:

A panel of experts from Springer, Oxford, New England Journal of Medicine, and Elsevier will offer industry insight and answer your burning questions. This program is geared toward faculty, housestaff, and post-docs green to the world of scientific publishing.
The event will include a moderated panel and Q&A session, followed by lunch and informal discussion. For registration and the full schedule, please visit http://bit.ly/AdviceFromTheExperts .

This month’s Under10 spotlight will be familiar to faculty, staff, and returning students—it’s Viga, a campus favorite for event catering. While you’ll probably enjoy their sandwiches or pizza on-campus at some point this year, I thought it’d be nice to highlight their takeout options, as Viga is a regular in my lunch spot rotation. There [...]

This month’s Under10 spotlight will be familiar to faculty, staff, and returning students—it’s Viga, a campus favorite for event catering. While you’ll probably enjoy their sandwiches or pizza on-campus at some point this year, I thought it’d be nice to highlight their takeout options, as Viga is a regular in my lunch spot rotation. There are four locations in the city and both the Stuart Street and Devonshire Street locations are within a 10 minute walk of campus. I have an arbitrary preference for the Stuart Street one, but there’s no difference in their offerings.

Viga’s menu consists of standard Italian takeout joint fare: calzones, pasta, pizza, salads, sandwiches, and wraps. They have a set rotation of daily specials for calzones, pizza, and pasta, which adds nice variety to their regular options. You can find these on their website.

With the exception of whole pizzas, everything is under $8.00. My go-to is their pasta, which is particularly cheering on a cold day. The baked ziti is reliably good; for specials, I like the Penne Badia (Tuesday) and the Pollo Tuscano (Friday). A small regular pasta runs from $3.39-$4.49 and small special pastas are $4.49 or $6.19. All pastas come with a fresh homemade roll, which makes it an even better deal. For $6.99 you can get a small pasta ($4.49 or under), a small salad, a soda, and a roll. Their other options are equally wallet-friendly: sandwiches run from $6-$8, pizza slices around $3, and calzones around $5.

At the checkout counter, there are a number of tempting baked goods. Their molasses ginger cookie is outstanding, a perfect balance of crispy and chewy, but I don’t think you could go wrong with any of their desserts. When you pay, be sure to ask for their frequent diner card. On your 6thvisit, you’ll get $3.00 off and on your 12th you’ll get $5.00 off. It’s one of the better visitor rewards programs I’ve seen.

The restaurants are usually packed between noon and 1pm—people sometimes spill out onto the sidewalk—but the line always moves fast. There are different stations for each type of food, so things progress easily once everyone has sorted themselves out. The Devonshire Street location has some seating, but the Stuart Street one does not. If you visit the latter and don’t want to head back to campus, enjoy the weather while it’s still nice in the Public Garden or on the Common.